Natural and Cost Effective Filtration Solution

At GRAHAM’s Coupland Building project (University of Manchester) we had to excavate the basement floor. The lower ground floor was made up of several large rooms with restricted access up out of the building. The easiest method for removal of the arisings was through an open hatch; a machine would remove material into a dumper and store it in a lay down area until the quantity could be removed by wagons.

We looked at several options to restrict the run off from the basement arisings. A vehicle wheel wash was ruled out due to site and economic restrictions. A jet wash system was also ruled out as this did not prevent the run off from the waste during rain affected periods – we had looked at bunding the rainwater gullies but any bund would have been damaged during vehicle movements.

The site team decided to put a filter directly below the gully lid using barley straw, due to its greater density than other straw products. The straw was wrapped in debris netting to prevent it breaking apart, the filters were placed below gully lids and held in place with a cable tie. With closed lids the straw filters completely covered the apertures and filtered both the run off and the road water.

It cost £5.50 for eight gullies; we already had the debris netting and eight filters were made in an hour. This is cost effective solution to a potentially damaging environmental problem. It is monitored and the filters are changed on a regular basis.

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Entry submitted by Graham Construction

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Why is this important?

It is important to avoid noise and vibration disturbance to surrounding neighbours and the local community. Noise and dust are major causes of complaint, as well as being an occupational health hazard. Minimising the impact of pollution also helps to protect the natural environment.

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